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How To Benefit From Referral Marketing
In case you’re unaware of this method, referral marketing allows you to promote your products or services to new customers through referrals rather than other channels such as advertising, social media campaigns and so on. Basically, it means that if you’re keeping your customers happy it will work to generate new business. This often takes place by word of mouth, although there are other ways of getting referrals. If you embark upon a referral marketing campaign it means you are taking steps to actively influence this process rather than relying on it happening spontaneously. So how do you go about it?
Find Target Group: It’s no good just asking anyone and everyone to give you referrals. To get the most out of your efforts you need to first think about who you’re targeting: which groups are most likely to be of use to you when it comes to influencing potential new customers? Once you’ve worked this out you need to find out where these people can be found (where they are most ‘active’) and how they can be incentivised to recommend you. Some people respond well to financial incentives, while others may welcome some kind of reward scheme. If you identify the wrong incentives you will not get the results you hope for.
Stick With It: It’s no good just getting your referral marketing progamme up and running and then forgetting about it. Like any online marketing campaign, the methods change rapidly so you will only get the most from it if you are continually optimising and updating it. It’s a good idea to research the best referral marketing software which will include tools that allow you to constantly monitor, track and test referrals. The resultant data you gather will allow you an insight into the activities and customer groups that are driving the best results. All of this will of course make it easier to upscale your programme over time.
Include Prompts: For referral marketing to work its best, you need to incorporate a call to action within every aspect of the user experience. The rule tends to be that the simpler it is to do it, the more likely customers are to give you the referral. They certainly won’t want to expend time and effort investing in tools themselves to support your brand. One thing you can do is create a hashtag that customers can use on Twitter. And of course, always have the Facebook and Twitter ‘share’ buttons clearly displayed at the top of any blog or other post you would like them to share. If part of your campaign includes encouraging customers to share emails of their experience, you could also create an email template to ensure the right language and branding message is being used.